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Monday, June 11, 2012

Monday Poetry Stretch - To Sleep

Woohoo! This is me sliding the stretch in under the wire! I'm operating on about 4 hours of sleep, having spent 11 hours in the Philadelphia airport waiting and hoping to get home on Sunday. I did finally make it home in the wee hours of Monday morning.

I am tired. And longing for sleep. But there is no rest for the weary. So, today I am thinking Keats might inspire us.

To Sleepby John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

I'm not sure I have a sonnet in me this week, but I think I can be persuaded to write about sleep. How about you? Leave me a note about your poem and I'll share the results here later this week.

Julie -- I love the balance of vowel sounds in this poem, especially the "o" and "oo" sounds. It's like a little class in how to modulate vowels and consonants -- great plosives (b, p, d, t) and liquids (r, l)!

Sshhhh. He's sleeping. The boy must get some rest.A weekend on the go, has left him tired and stressed.Talk to him tomorrow when he wakes up quite refreshed.Disturb him now and he will be, nowhere near his best.

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